Student visa programs can be improved to limit national security holes

Supporting quotes from the Economist Debate Series

Frances Cairncross. The Economist Debate Series. The Proposition’s Rebuttal. December 14th, 2007 – “But what about the point that student visas are ‘ideal cover for terrorists, criminals and other young, unattached people who would not otherwise qualify for entry’? Well, it’s certainly true that a student visa is usually the easiest way for a foreigner to enter a country – much easier than having to marry someone of the right nationality or hide in the back of a truck. But that is not an argument against educating foreign students. It’s a powerful argument against having a sloppy student-visa scheme, and not policing it properly after students arrive. George Borjas, the economist that Ms Vaughan quotes, wrote some vitriolic attacks in 2002 on the way the system then worked. ‘There are only 4,000 colleges and 6,000 state-accredited vocational schools in the United States, but around 73,000 institutions have the authority to accept foreign students,’ he said. ‘The list of INS-approved institutions include not only Harvard and MIT, but also beauty schools, flight schools, and such exotic places as the Asian American Acupuncture University in San Diego, the Nash Academy of Animal Arts (a pet-grooming school) in New Jersey, and the American Nanny College in Los Angeles.’ Small wonder that the occasional terrorist slips through a net as full of holes as that one.”

rtfsouth, commenter. Economist Online Debate Series, Education 2. December 14th, 2007 – “Some of the arguments for the Con are not persuasive – the national security issue exists, but it is a call for reform in the visa program, not an argument against the proposition.”

joeswift, commenter. Economist Debate Series, Education 2. December 14, 2007 – The opposition’s second argument, that foreign students pose a security threat, is another ill aimed stab at the expanse of the knowledge economy. Surely better background checks are the answer to this problem, not wholesale abandonment of the international exchange of ideas.